Random Happenstance

I recently lucked into another copy of this one; but that's not the only reason I'm blogging it. I bought it back when it hit the racks, and it might not be my favorite of the series brief run--or the issues of it I found--I still like it. From 1986, Savage Tales #3, cover by Mitch O'Connell.

Chuck Dixon goes by Charles in his three stories this issue; two of them with John Severin: first 1920's war story "By Rail to Vladivostok," then closing the issue with historical western "The Canyon of the Three." There's a cowboy in the latter, that looks like how I picture Severin, which I don't think is accurate, but I still do. Dixon also writes a WW II story for Dick Ayers, "For the Fatherland," in which late in the war, a Nazi courier fights like hell to deliver his messages, then has to destroy them when he is wounded...and discovers what he was dying for. (No spoiler, but it's not a poignant ending.)

I really dig this page, honestly; and its use of "Teddy Bears' Picnic!" It's from another chapter of "The Skywarriors," Herb Trimpe's post-apocalypse plane-fighting serial. I really liked it, and he seemed to really be putting his all into it, but I'll warn you: I don't think it was ever finished! Ditto "Gutz," by Will Jungkuntz, who I believe died suddenly around the time this issue came out. The Doug Murray/Michael Golden "5th to the 1st" missed this issue, but would only appear in one more issue, since it would be spun off into its own title, the 'Nam. So, all the serial stories were phased out after the fourth issue. Which may not have helped, this incarnation of Savage Tales would only run to #8; although I wonder if that wasn't because Marvel wanted to go into a different direction. The Conan black-and-white magazines seemed to be going along swimmingly; I was thinking of Marvel's Nightmare on Elm Street magazines, which were successful but they were scared of pushback from anti-violence/parents' groups.